It was a getaway weekend, this past one, for the G & G family. It was fine. I give it a B- overall. It was S's idea, which isn't surprising, as she's big on these rut-breaking excursions in normal times, let alone after quarantining for a few months. I'm more of a homebody, myself, especially so after having kids. If an activity isn't explicitly kid-friendly, then it's often more work (and less fun) than just staying at home. This weekend had a bit of that to it.
S booked us a "cottage in the woods" near Waynesboro, Virginia. I use quotes, because it was more like a one-room townhouse than a cottage, and it wasn't really in the woods. It was cute, and it had some nice amenities, but there was nothing really to do there. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to go there for a relaxing/romantic escape -- drink wine and eat cheese in bed, have coffee on the porch the next morning, shower with six different shower heads -- but, again, kids. Relaxation and romance is pretty much impossible when you have a two kids under eight in tow. And in our case we have to constantly worry they are going to break something (possibly a bone in their own body). They were obsessed with the aforementioned shower and with these big window blinds controlled by a switch. Lil' S2 literally tried to ride the blinds to the ceiling, and he might have been light enough to do it had we not stopped him.
The thing is, S often underestimates/forgets how difficult it is to take our kids to "grown-up" places. There were a bunch of wineries around, and she suggested that we go to one for dinner one night. I was against it, because I wasn't sure how that would work with distancing/mask wearing, and also because you just can't take our kids to a place like that unless you want to spend a few hours wrangling/yelling at them (or letting them stare mindlessly at a screen). "But So-and-So took their kids, and they're the same age as ours," said S. Yes, they are the same age, but they are not the same kids. We have exceptionally rambunctious boys (especially the younger one). We just have to accept that and act accordingly. I reminded S that on our last vacation, she took the kids to meet some friends for lunch, and she was texting me in tears, because they were being so rowdy. It won't always be like this. They'll get older and understand how to behave better (Lil' S1 is pretty much there, so long as his little partner-in-crime isn't around). But it is for now. "Yeah," she said. "You're right." Small victories...
The other thing about our cottage that annoyed me is that it shared a wall with another cottage (which is why it wasn't actually a cottage), and said wall was not very thick. It sucks to be in the middle of nowhere, trying to "get away from it all," and hear the people next door watching The Bourne Supremacy, or something like that, while you're trying to relax. Also, the cottage is basically a big studio apartment, and S and the boys went to sleep before 9:00 pm both nights, so I was like, Well, guess I'll sit in the dark for a few hours until I get tired.
But there were some really good parts of the weekend as well (he says after four paragraphs of bitching). Friday evening we took a nice walk along the South River in Waynesboro. It's kind of a cute place. They have a giant mural, which won some sort of award. S says it's ugly, but I think it looks sorta cool. The kids enjoyed playing near the water. We didn't let them go in the water, because we didn't bring their swimsuits or towels, but there were people of all ages in the river, including some weirdos, who were probably hopped up on goofballs.
We mostly kept our distance from strangers. Nobody was wearing masks -- including us -- but we had them with us in case we needed them. It's amazing (and sad) that you can tell the politics of a region by the prevalence of mask wearing. It's infuriating that the Trumpist Right has decided to take some sort of idiotic stance against mask wearing, but I just don't know what we can do about it. State and local officials can (and should) make mask laws, but actually enforcing those laws would be almost impossible and maybe even counterproductive. (We need to give police another excuse to hassle citizens?) The laws would be a formal statement of expectation, but it would still be on all of us to live up to that expectation. We need a strong mask-wearing norm. We need everybody to feel social pressure to wear one, but right now, I don't know how those of us who want to apply this pressure do it. The other side won't listen to anything we say, no matter how we say it, and in fact they are probably less likely to do it explicitly because we are saying it. So, what's the solution? I don't know, and there's not much time to figure it out. I like to think we can just protect ourselves, and if COVID runs roughshod over all the non-masking wearing dummies, so be it, but we all know that's not really how it works. This disease isn't out to give irresponsible people their comeuppance. It thrives on the most vulnerable, and many people are vulnerable through no fault of your own.
In Waynesboro, it was about 50-50, as far as mask wearing inside goes. I popped in a Target really quick and everybody had a mask on, but then at the gas station mini mart (which was quite crowded) I could see nobody had one on. Based on this I guessed that Waynesboro leans red, but has a sizable blue population, which is spot on. I saw almost no non-white people around, but I did see a gay social club with a very prominent sign, so that made me feel better. That's where I am now with traveling to places that aren't big cities. I'm always a little uneasy, and then if I see black or gay people, I'm like, Yes! I can hang here! It's weird how that's happened. Growing up I was surrounded almost exclusively by white heteros, and now I get edgy if I see too high a percentage of them while traveling. What's going on here? Why are there no minorities around? That's what Trump has done: made me nervous of my own people.
The next day we really drove into Trump country. We went to the Crabtree Falls Trail, which is a really nice hike, and there are people of all colors and persuasions on the trail, but in order to get there, you have to drive by a Confederate flag or two. Actually, I think I saw three Confederate flags and about seven Trump signs. Per mile, I think that's actual fewer than we saw on our drive to Columbus, Ohio last year. Also, I saw a few signs, at least, that went the other way. A car in front of us had a Bernie bumper sticker; a very crudely made yard sign said, "Health Care For All Vote Democratic"; and another yard sign said, "Drain the Swamp," and then it had the names Trump, Barr, and McConnell all crossed out. Using Trump's own words slogan him -- I like it.
Anyway, the falls were cool, and the hike was the perfect length, about 3.5 miles round-trip. The kids walked almost the entire time. I had to carry them a bit, but I don't mind. I like it actually. That's how you get a really good workout in. Carrying heavy things uphill -- it's an underrated exercise. What I really need to do is get a decent backpack -- not like a hardcore hiking backpack, but one of those one's with the bottom strap that buckles around your waist. Without that strap, carrying a backpack for an extended period of time kills my back.* So, every time we go hiking, which has been a lot lately, S carries the backpack. I would feel bad, except she intentionally bought a not-so-practical, girly-looking backpack because she wanted something stylish, so that's on her. Plus, the kids are much heavier to carry than the backpack, so she actually gets the lighter load.
*In general, my back has gotten much better the past few years. The main reason: a standing desk. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you have back pain and spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer.
When we left the trail, we realized we weren't getting any cell service, and it was sad how much of a catastrophe that caused. We didn't have GPS, and we had no idea how to get back to our cottage without it. We didn't even think to write the directions down or anything like that. Thankfully, on S's phone the map app was still showing us kinda where we were, but it didn't have much detail, and it couldn't give us directions to a destination. I'm not totally sure how it knew where we were at all. I think it had already downloaded a base map to the phone, and the movement we were seeing was being generated locally using built-in distance/direction functionality. That would make sense, as we didn't have any trouble with the directions on the way there, but surely our service cut out at some point, and we didn't notice it. So, that's my guess, but I'm not totally sure.
Whatever the case, we finally made it back to civilization (i.e., a highway with cell service), but not before some "scary" moments. We made several wrong turns trying to navigate local unpaved roads, and we drove past several boarded-up churches and rusted out pickup trucks. I didn't literally hear "Dueling Banjos," but I had it going through my head the entire time.
When we finally made it back, I took the kids through the Sonic drive-thru for some ice cream (an Oreo milkshake for myself, thank you very much), and then we all snuggled up and watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I'm not huge on animation or comic book movies, but this one was pretty good. S liked it as well, and of course the kids loved it (they had already seen it a half-dozen times). It was the rare movie that all four of us enjoyed.
Alright, I think this post is long enough.
Until next time...
[The award-winning mural]
[The weirdos who were probably hopped up on goofballs]
[My boys live by the rule of ABC: Always Be Climbing]
We mostly kept our distance from strangers. Nobody was wearing masks -- including us -- but we had them with us in case we needed them. It's amazing (and sad) that you can tell the politics of a region by the prevalence of mask wearing. It's infuriating that the Trumpist Right has decided to take some sort of idiotic stance against mask wearing, but I just don't know what we can do about it. State and local officials can (and should) make mask laws, but actually enforcing those laws would be almost impossible and maybe even counterproductive. (We need to give police another excuse to hassle citizens?) The laws would be a formal statement of expectation, but it would still be on all of us to live up to that expectation. We need a strong mask-wearing norm. We need everybody to feel social pressure to wear one, but right now, I don't know how those of us who want to apply this pressure do it. The other side won't listen to anything we say, no matter how we say it, and in fact they are probably less likely to do it explicitly because we are saying it. So, what's the solution? I don't know, and there's not much time to figure it out. I like to think we can just protect ourselves, and if COVID runs roughshod over all the non-masking wearing dummies, so be it, but we all know that's not really how it works. This disease isn't out to give irresponsible people their comeuppance. It thrives on the most vulnerable, and many people are vulnerable through no fault of your own.
In Waynesboro, it was about 50-50, as far as mask wearing inside goes. I popped in a Target really quick and everybody had a mask on, but then at the gas station mini mart (which was quite crowded) I could see nobody had one on. Based on this I guessed that Waynesboro leans red, but has a sizable blue population, which is spot on. I saw almost no non-white people around, but I did see a gay social club with a very prominent sign, so that made me feel better. That's where I am now with traveling to places that aren't big cities. I'm always a little uneasy, and then if I see black or gay people, I'm like, Yes! I can hang here! It's weird how that's happened. Growing up I was surrounded almost exclusively by white heteros, and now I get edgy if I see too high a percentage of them while traveling. What's going on here? Why are there no minorities around? That's what Trump has done: made me nervous of my own people.
The next day we really drove into Trump country. We went to the Crabtree Falls Trail, which is a really nice hike, and there are people of all colors and persuasions on the trail, but in order to get there, you have to drive by a Confederate flag or two. Actually, I think I saw three Confederate flags and about seven Trump signs. Per mile, I think that's actual fewer than we saw on our drive to Columbus, Ohio last year. Also, I saw a few signs, at least, that went the other way. A car in front of us had a Bernie bumper sticker; a very crudely made yard sign said, "Health Care For All Vote Democratic"; and another yard sign said, "Drain the Swamp," and then it had the names Trump, Barr, and McConnell all crossed out. Using Trump's own words slogan him -- I like it.
Anyway, the falls were cool, and the hike was the perfect length, about 3.5 miles round-trip. The kids walked almost the entire time. I had to carry them a bit, but I don't mind. I like it actually. That's how you get a really good workout in. Carrying heavy things uphill -- it's an underrated exercise. What I really need to do is get a decent backpack -- not like a hardcore hiking backpack, but one of those one's with the bottom strap that buckles around your waist. Without that strap, carrying a backpack for an extended period of time kills my back.* So, every time we go hiking, which has been a lot lately, S carries the backpack. I would feel bad, except she intentionally bought a not-so-practical, girly-looking backpack because she wanted something stylish, so that's on her. Plus, the kids are much heavier to carry than the backpack, so she actually gets the lighter load.
*In general, my back has gotten much better the past few years. The main reason: a standing desk. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you have back pain and spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer.
[Scenes from the hike]
When we left the trail, we realized we weren't getting any cell service, and it was sad how much of a catastrophe that caused. We didn't have GPS, and we had no idea how to get back to our cottage without it. We didn't even think to write the directions down or anything like that. Thankfully, on S's phone the map app was still showing us kinda where we were, but it didn't have much detail, and it couldn't give us directions to a destination. I'm not totally sure how it knew where we were at all. I think it had already downloaded a base map to the phone, and the movement we were seeing was being generated locally using built-in distance/direction functionality. That would make sense, as we didn't have any trouble with the directions on the way there, but surely our service cut out at some point, and we didn't notice it. So, that's my guess, but I'm not totally sure.
Whatever the case, we finally made it back to civilization (i.e., a highway with cell service), but not before some "scary" moments. We made several wrong turns trying to navigate local unpaved roads, and we drove past several boarded-up churches and rusted out pickup trucks. I didn't literally hear "Dueling Banjos," but I had it going through my head the entire time.
When we finally made it back, I took the kids through the Sonic drive-thru for some ice cream (an Oreo milkshake for myself, thank you very much), and then we all snuggled up and watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I'm not huge on animation or comic book movies, but this one was pretty good. S liked it as well, and of course the kids loved it (they had already seen it a half-dozen times). It was the rare movie that all four of us enjoyed.
Alright, I think this post is long enough.
Until next time...
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